Crime and Punishment

Penguin Classics

By: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Oliver Ready

Narrated by: Don Warrington

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Don Warrington, known for his roles in Death in Paradise and The Five as well as his multiple Shakespearean performances. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Oliver Ready.

Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year 2014.

This acclaimed new translation of Dostoyevsky's 'psychological record of a crime' gives his dark masterpiece of murder and pursuit a renewed vitality, expressing its jagged, staccato urgency and fevered atmosphere as never before. Raskolnikov, a destitute and desperate former student, wanders alone through the slums of St. Petersburg, deliriously imagining himself above society's laws. But when he commits a random murder, only suffering ensues. Embarking on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden prostitute, can offer the chance of redemption.

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow and made his name in 1846 with the novella Poor Folk. He spent several years in prison in Siberia as a result of his political activities, an experience which formed the basis of The House of the Dead. In later life, he fell in love with a much younger woman and developed a ruinous passion for roulette. His subsequent great novels include Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons and The Brothers Karamazov.

Oliver Ready is Research Fellow in Russian Society and Culture at St Antony's College, Oxford. He is general editor of the anthology, The Ties of Blood: Russian Literature from the 21st Century (2008) and Consultant Editor for Russia, Central and Eastern Europe at the Times Literary Supplement.

Translation Copyright: Oliver Ready 2014.

Public Domain (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"A truly great translation.... This English version really is better." (A. N. Wilson, The Spectator)

Masterpiece

Outstanding thank you, such a treasure this book is, narrator was excellent too, I loved it.

Reading long classics is very hard for me

I enjoyed the voice actor greatly, he has the magic of making the story real. This story requires much attention to the details or you will be lost quickly. So glad I took the plunge!

Amazing, great book, wonderful ending

I found this reader the best available compared to others on audible . Thank you very much

Narration too quiet and muffled

I had the volume on my phone and in my car turned up as high as it could go, and the narration was still too quiet and too muffled to understand clearly. This book took far longer to finish than it should have, because I kept having to replay things 4 or 5 times just to discern what was being said. The dialogue was atrocious. Several times I had to stop what I was doing to pull my hardcopy from the bookshelf and read it for myself.

Don warrington is a king

I will listen to anything this narrator reads- tearjerking and painful but was guided and immersed by the perfect voice